


Klaus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by Enigel



Category: From Eroica with Love
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-09
Updated: 2009-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-02 12:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enigel/pseuds/Enigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>- and how Dorian made it better</em> worse! <em>somewhat better</em> Worse! <em>a little better? </em> Hmph! Idiot. -</p>
            </blockquote>





	Klaus and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to firefly1311, for hosting the Eroica fans meeting, and especially yours truly, in her lovely home in Heidelberg last year. :) The idea at the center of the plot was hers, too.
> 
> Beta-ed by Anne-Li - thank you!

No wonder the Major hasn't developed more of an artistic sense, Dorian reflected as the heels of his boots clunked on the empty streets. Bonn wasn't really much of a leisure city. Sunday afternoon, and the quietness lying over the city wasn't as much peaceable as dull. Dorian had seen the few buildings worth seeing and he'd languished melancholy on a bench in the park until the autumn chill got to his skin and everybody who could have admired his beautiful green-gold coat had passed by - regrettably few people at that.

He wasn't prepared to write off the Major's city just yet though, not until he'd seen and hopefully spoken to the man himself. It was the least he could get from this otherwise failed day. In fact, he decided, the Major _owed_ him that, for all the talk about how Bonn was such a great city.

The fact that it was Sunday didn't deter him in the least. The Major was a known workaholic, so he might still be at work. Or he could be in his apartment. He knew Klaus wasn't on holiday - Klaus was never on holiday - or at the Schloss, though the least the Major knew about how Dorian had obtained that information, the better.

He set out in the approximate direction of the NATO building, trusting that serendipity would take care of the rest, like it had taken care of James, whom Bonham was probably supervising right now in the supermarket while he sullied the name of England all over the free samples booths.

A few blocks away from the NATO quarters he was unexpectedly rewarded for his belief in the gods of chance with the sound of an unmistakable voice. Dorian's heart beat more giddily upon hearing the Major's shouts, and he sneaked behind a tree to peek at their source. There was a rather large gathering of agents - Dorian recognised B's curls and roundish build, as well as G's hair, shining in the pale sun. They seemed to be huddled together, while The Major reigned among them with the majesty of an angry sovereign. Very angry, in fact, mused Dorian, his bellows were scaring off a few small dogs, and birds kept flying indignantly away from the nearest trees.

"Hello, Lord Gloria."

Dorian jumped and turned, his heart skipping a beat. Then he recognised Z and smiled widely.

"Oh, Z! What a pleasure! Don't sneak up on me like that, do you want to kill me?"

Z looked instantly a bit apologetic, the polite darling, so Dorian hurried to reassure him.

"No, no, dear, you're a secret agent, you're supposed to be sneaky! That's all right."

For some reason, Z looked even more abashed at that, which connected to the major shouting taking place in the proximity didn't bide well.

"Oh, Z, what's wrong? I can hear the dear Major going on from here. I think they might be hearing him in Berlin."

"It's been quite a day," Z said cautiously, but seemed reluctant to offer more.

"Hm, a bad day? Then maybe I can make it better!" Dorian brightened at the prospect.

"No!" Z gasped.

"Really, a little venting and he'll be all better," Dorian said determinedly and made as if to abandon the safety of the tree.

"Oh no, Lord Gloria, I insist."

Z looked dejected but stern.

"Really?" Dorian eyed Z speculatively. "How insistent are you willing to be?" he then asked in a flirtatious tone, looking Z from under lowered eyelashes.

Z blushed intensely but didn't back down.

"Please, Lord Gloria."

"Well, if an agent like you is willing to risk getting bodily attached to scary ole me it must be really serious. Tell me then, tell me what happened."

Z looked as if he might refuse again, then suddenly his shoulders slumped and the words broke free.

"Nothing. Nothing that was supposed to happen happened, and anything that could go wrong did. Every single one of us failed."

Dorian blinked and didn't know quite what to say. He was used to the Major's describing his alphabets as incompetent disgraces to the service, but he'd always taken for granted that it was one of Klaus' exaggerations.

"Oh," he said at last. "Well, why don't you start at the end? What did you do?"

Z only sighed, so Dorian offered an incentive.

"If you tell me first, by the time you get to A you're going to look good by comparison. Not that you don't always look... very good," he added, savouring the agent's flustered look.

"I got recognised. During the op. While I was supposed to be," he said with a bitter smile, "sneaky and stealthy."

"Oh." Dorian frowned. "Did the KGB spot you? Or maybe the Eastern Germans?"

Z's shoulders stooped even lower.

"A girl."

"A girl! Oh, dear, that's really bad," Dorian said sternly, while Z's face varied between a few shades of red.

"She came up to me in the street, and I couldn't pretend I hadn't seen her, and by the time I managed to assure her we'll be meeting again, the target was gone."

"So young and already snatched by the enemy." Dorian sighed. "I've always thought your talents were wasted on women, but we can't help liking what we like." He spared a wistful look towards the flock of agents and its angry shepherd. "I suppose the Major was furious."

"He doesn't know yet. He's doing it in order, starting with A, but he won't forget anything anyway. For years."

Z's voice was rueful, and Dorian rushed to speak before the agent could sink too deep in his own misery.

"I promise I'm not going to run anywhere, but let's at least draw closer, shall we?" he cajoled. "I would so like to hear what poor A has to say - he's such a nice boy, and B - he's full of, um, good intentions."

Before Z could object again, Dorian was already in motion; he made good on his promise, stealing through the trees like a cat, and when he looked back he saw that Z had followed him behind the conveniently rich tree.

They were close enough to catch every word now, and could hear that the Major was still at the general imprecations.

"What about the others?" Dorian asked in a hushed voice.

"It was a disaster," Z replied in kind. "Y's fake moustache came off at the train station..."

Dorian snickered.

"W's glasses broke and he couldn't see a thing..."

Dorian covered his mouth with a hand, trying to keep appearances for the sake of Z's visible grief.

* * *

"A?"

"Sir, I... I followed the targets to a private club of sorts, and I couldn't follow them in."

"Couldn't you force your way through?!"

"That would have attracted too much attention, and we were supposed to be under the radar, so I posted B at the entrance and went to find the back door. They never came out that way, until D reported seeing the targets at the next possible point."

"B?"

"They never came out the front way either, sir! I was not away one moment, sir, not even to the toilet! Although it was terribly tormenting," he added in a smaller voice.

"They must have been disguised, you dolt! What did I teach you about discerning real traits from disguises?! C?"

"I, uh, I ran out of film, sir."

"So I've heard. What are we going to find on that film once developed?"

"Er." C coughed. "S-suspicious characters, sir. You told us to be vigilant and keep an eye on everyone who got in or out."

"Everyone suspicious, yes. I look forward to your priceless additions to our database. I sent the film to the lab with high priority, by the way. I don't want your contributions to be lost in the paperwork." Klaus smiled at the agent, who promptly began shaking.

"What's on the film?" B whispered in C's ear.

Despite the chill October air, C was sweating abundantly, making it look like tears under his eyes.

"Lots of women," he whispered back.

"Oh yeah," agreed B, "they're all suspicious."

* * *

"V missed the U-Bahn and was late at the rendezvous point, U and T were both waiting at the _other_ front entrance of the park..."

Dorian raised his eyebrows and Z sighed resignedly.

"Please, not you too."

Dorian smiled.

"But I wasn't even going to make a joke about confusing the front and the back," he said airily, while Z went crimson-red.

"Really, I wasn't!" Dorian said, trying his best innocent look. "Do go on, please."

Z took a deep breath and went on.

* * *

"D's car got stolen, he's at the police now," E said nervously, likely knowing that he was going to take the brunt for both D's and his own transgression.

"What about you, E?"

The Major's voice was now blank and precise. The next alphabets in line were shaking like rushes in the wind. It made a rather pitiful image, indeed, Dorian had to admit, while allowing Z to take a break from his saga of small disasters. _His_ voice was getting more and more resigned, and Dorian wished nothing more than to give him a hug and send him home, but he knew it was probably likely that such a gesture would crush Z's last defenses. He turned his attention back to E's plight.

"My car, well, I was just back from vacation, as you know and, um, I've been on a driving tour through Benelux and..."

Just when Dorian wondered how long the Major's restraint was going to last, Klaus interrupted E with the same sharp, precise monotone:

"To the point, Agent E."

Oh dear, Dorian thought, no irony about how E's fascinating travelling experience was going to make the object of his next report from Alaska? Things were very dire indeed.

"I was out of gas," E blurted out.

"Noted. F?"

* * *

"R and S lost the parking card and couldn't get out of the parking lot in time, and the barrier man wouldn't want to hear that they were NATO agents. He said it was the worst excuse he'd ever heard for trying to sneak out of paying."

Z stopped and Dorian waited patiently. He was finding the whole thing fascinating, in a study in catastrophes way; complete disasters had their own strange beauty, he reflected. Was it the sinking feeling that you were at the lowest and couldn't get any worse?

He sneaked a glance at Z when the agent wasn't looking his way. Z didn't appear to enjoy the aesthetics of disasters at all.

"Ahem," Dorian said. "I think we were at Q?"

"Q? Oh, Q. He went to the toilet just when the target left the parking lot. B is going to be happy."

Dorian looked at him questioningly.

"That's usually B's specialty," Z explained glumly. "But please don't tell him I let it slip."

"No worries," Dorian assured him. "What about P?"

* * *

"G?"

The agent's skirts were all ruffled, and his usually perfectly contoured lips bore only traces of lipstick.

"Oh, Major, I am so sorry to have failed you!"

"What. Happened?" Klaus gritted out, betraying that he wasn't as calm as he tried to appear. Then again, Dorian knew from experience that there were a number of people who never failed to get a rise out him, though only in the temper sense. Sadly.

"I couldn't seduce him," G burst into tears.

That must hurt, Dorian thought, looking at Klaus's jaw and the way it seemed to try and clench itself through his cheeks.

"Poor G," Dorian whispered to Z, "I must find a way to console him, his femininity is no doubt feeling very insecure right now."

Z went rather white at that and Dorian chose to look away, at the next agent to be roasted.

"H, your turn," Klaus said briskly.

"It was my driver's licence, sir," H reported with the aplomb of a condemned on his last steps to the gallows pole. "My driver's licence had expired."

"AND IT WAS YOUR BLOODY LICENCE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO TO RENEW ITSELF, WASN'T IT?!"

The whole park seemed to shake with the Major's bellow. As breaking points went, Dorian thought, this one was rather random.

"JUST LIKE E'S CAR WAS SUPPOSED TO REFUEL ITSELF, AND C'S CAMERA TO HAVE AN ENDLESS FILM, AND F'S TARGET TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF! You're all wastes of NATO resources and stains on this department! You shame the name of German Intelligence and..."

Dorian tuned him out and observed Z for signs of imminent fainting. He had to guard the most promising of them at all costs! At least his mistakes were made of passion, no matter how misplaced.

"And we're not even at half of the alphabet," Z observed blankly, showing no signs of impending collapse. "I haven't had the chance to talk to the other agents," he said to Dorian, "and I really should be there anyway."

"Then I shall come with you!" Dorian said brightly.

"Lord Gloria, I think you underestimate Major von dem Eberbach's mood."

"Oh, I don't underestimate our Major in the slightest. I expect him to curse up a storm at me. In fact, I shall be sorely disappointed if I don't get more of a reaction out of him that these little mishaps of your coworkers have," Dorian said breezily, passing a hand through his hair to give it a little more volume.

"You're offering to serve as a lightning rod." Z's words were half question, half surprised and somewhat sad assertion.

"I have my own selfish reasons, Agent Z," Eroica said, grinning broadly. "I'd hate for the Major to find a bigger annoyance than me."

"This is a bad idea," Z said, but dragged his feet over to where the Major was now grilling I for accidentally setting fire to the deaddrop - a waste bin - with his cigarette.

"Anyway," Z said, apparently still on a roll, "S said he heard from P that O got in a bike accident, N slipped and sprained his ankle, and M passed out from a hypoglycemic shock, or possibly exhaustion. It was his sister's birthday this Sunday," he added just as they reached the focal point of the screaming recital.

Klaus had gone on to lecturing all his agents, without having even heard what they'd done or failed to do, much to Dorian's disappointment. He'd really wanted to hear what had sealed J, K and L's fates. It wasn't fair for the Major to interrupt the tale-telling _now_!

He even said so, in the pause between two barked imprecations when Klaus was lighting himself a cigarette.

"You," Klaus said sourly, flicking the barely touched cigarette to the ground and stomping on it. "Leave us," he said, not looking at the flock of agents.

The agents scurried away like sparrows.

"Of course you had to be here," Klaus continued, advancing ominously towards Dorian. "This day couldn't have been fully miserable without _you_."

"Why, Major, I knew you'd realise eventually that your days aren't complete without me." Dorian feigned delight in a very believable manner, if Klaus's deepening scowl was any indication.

"That's one way of putting it. The days aren't the same, that's for sure."

"I'm thrilled that you think so much of me, if not very highly."

Klaus lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply, once, twice. Just when Dorian though he wasn't going to speak, the Major did, though none friendlier.

"What do you want?"

"Well, I'm _dying_ to know what happened to Agents J, K and L, for one."

Klaus glared, took his cigarette out and was just opening his mouth to (probably) rant, so Dorian hurried to speak before he could do so.

"Should the poor sods start packing for Alaska already?"

Klaus stopped and swallowed whatever he'd been about to say. He looked caught, Dorian noticed with surprise, that indefinable _look_ he sometimes got that helped Dorian hang on to the feeling that there was much more to the Major than he'd want anyone to see.

"The stupid imbeciles are safe. I'm going."

"What?" Dorian had a penchant for drama entrenched so deep in his affectations, sometimes it slipped from his control and made him interpret things in the worst case scenario. "You're quitting?!"

"No, you idiot," snapped Klaus. "I'm deporting myself to Alaska. Happy now?"

The Major began pacing and Dorian got in stride with him.

"Well, no, Major, the weather there doesn't really agree with me, and you must realise I shall have to visit you when I start missing you."

"With dread."

A pause ensued, while Dorian pondered his next words and Klaus seemed disinclined to humour him any further. All he could hear was the crunching of dead leaves under their boots. To Dorian's surprise, it was the Major who broke the silence first.

"Last time I sent the dolts there didn't do them any good, and Z and I got knee-deep in paperwork. Let them get stuck with desk jobs for a month, while I'll be spared their stupid company."

Dorian remained silent and serious, and his intuition must have been correct, because Klaus spoke again.

"I trained these monkeys. Every single one of them is my responsibility. The twenty-six failures today, they're all on my head."

"Major, you don't control the whole universe. There's such a thing as bad luck. You seem to have got a heavier dose of it today."

"Bad luck doesn't have a place in my missions!"

"Now, Major, that's a very prideful thing to say, don't you think?"

Dorian was smiling slyly, and Klaus glared at him.

"So what?"

"So pride is very dangerous for an agent too. Maybe this was your lesson."

"That I'm surrounded by incompetence?"

"That you can't control everything, so you shouldn't beat yourself up when it goes wrong. Not all the times, anyway."

"But what was the likelihood that none of them would accomplish their mission?"

"Exactly!"

"If they were competent, at least some of them would have some results."

"Even competent men have their bad days. It's only misfortune that they had them all at once."

Klaus finished his cigarette and stubbed it angrily against a fence.

"Why are you here, anyway? Have you made a habit of loitering on German ground?"

Dorian smiled slightly.

"I was here to obtain an item for my collection."

"Stop! I don't wanna know anything about your thievery!"

"Are you sure? It might make your day better."

"I'm sure none of your doings can make this rotten day better."

"Well, can anything make it worse?"

Klaus didn't grace this with an answer.

"Anyway, I'll take your silence as agreement and tell you - no details, don't worry - how it went. I didn't get it."

"Hm?"

"The exhibition had closed." Dorian laughed softly. "It was supposed to be open until today, and we were going to take advantage of the packing rush. Instead all the halls were deserted, and there was just the permanent collection, which didn't interest me in the slightest."

"Hmph."

"Tell me that isn't good to hear in the slightest."

"It would be," admitted Klaus, "if you were more annoyed about it."

"I am frustrated, Major, I'm just better at hiding it."

"Hmph."

"Well then. I'm off to the airport soon. Want me to check out the next flights for Anchorage?"

Klaus glared at Eroica's knowing smirk.

"I don't need your help."

"I'm offering anyway."

"No. Who knows what kind of trouble those sheep can get into? And I can't leave G with the Chief, and I'm _not_ taking him with me."

"You could take the Chief..." Dorian proposed thoughtfully.

The Major glared, but his mouth was curved in the slightest incipient smile.

"Not sure I could fight off the temptation to dump him in the water and leave him there."

"Well, then it's obvious you must make a sacrifice and stay, Major."

"Yeah, looks like it."

"This is goodbye then, until next we meet." Dorian smiled. "Be well, Major, and good luck on your next mission!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Klaus muttered and began striding back towards his agents, who had huddled into a close formation, resembling nothing more than the herd the Major had compared them to.

Klaus had already walked pretty far when Dorian remembered something and cried after him.

"Oh, Major? Would you let me know what had J, K and L did? Please, I'm dying to know!"

Klaus's short responding imprecation made Dorian giggle.

"Glad I could help you, Major", he said softly, throwing one last look towards Klaus's silhouette stomping away. "It even makes up for my missed chance, though I couldn't tell you _that_ or it'd set you off all over again. One day... Until that day..." He blew a kiss in the Major's direction. "...from Eroica with love, good luck!"

* * *

_Epilogue_

Major von dem Eberbach and his comet trail of agents had barely reached the NATO quarters' gate when three men ran panting towards the group.

"Major, Major!" one of them was shouting.

Klaus acknowledged them with a nod.

"Agents J, K and L," he said, tone kept carefully blank. "Glad you could be persuaded to join us."

"But sir, we have located the Ea..." J was interrupted by an elbow from K and his voice sounded slightly strained when he continued. "The target. He entered the country at 4:55 this morning, and went to visit the Art Museum."

"How fascinating," Klaus said flatly, enjoying the deflated looks on the three agents' faces.

"Nothing is missing from the museum, sir," J said proudly, though with less aplomb. "We have worked out that he's staying at the Ritz, and he's going to leave with the 6pm flight from Bonn-Cologne airport."

"Which is..." L consulted his watch. "In two hours 14 minutes, sir!"

Klaus continued to regard them impassively.

"Er. Shouldn't we take some action, sir?" K asked in a small voice.

"Yes," Klaus said. "GO AND WAVE HIM GOOD-FUCKING-BYE!"

He savoured the sad and sorry sight of the dumbfounded agents for a moment, and then turned and walked resolutely towards the entrance.


End file.
